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Country Music Hall of Fame on track to raise $100M

Nate Rau, The Tennessean
Published 6:39 p.m. ET Sept. 1, 2013

The museum has raised $78 million from private donations to pay for its expansion.

Director Kyle Young shows the new top-floor event hall at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville. The museum is on track to meet its $100 million fundraising goal.(Photo: Sanford Myers, The Tennessean)

NASHVILLE -- The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum has secured $78 million from private donations as part of its ongoing fundraising campaign to pay for a $100 million expansion, which is expected to be completed early next year.

Once completed, the new Country Music Hall of Fame will have grown from 140,000 square feet to 350,000 square feet and the building will literally sync up with the new Omni Hotel, which is the headquarters hotel for the new convention center.

The museum's expansion is expected to be completed in time for an anticipated celebration in March.

Touting record attendance and its secure financial situation, Hall of Fame Director Kyle Young appealed to the public to help close the $22 million gap. Young said the fundraising effort was about where he thought it would be at this point in the campaign.

"We feel like we're in the home stretch, and given what we have in the works, other potential donors we're working through, I'm fairly confident we'll get it," Young said. "We'll hit goal."

“I think we have a real advantage to engage people and capture people's imagination.”

Kyle Young, director, Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum

Lewis Lavine, president for Nashville's Center for Nonprofit Management, said the public mood has improved for such massive fundraising efforts after falling off sharply during the recession.

"Following a decade-and-a-half of 'rah-rah' fundraising, everything changed in 2009 and capital campaigns, large endowment campaigns really came to a crashing halt," Lavine said. "Since then, the economy has gotten better and the environment is better, but it's still not what it was."

Working to the Hall of Fame's advantage, Lavine said, is its success over the past decade, stressing that potential donors want to know whether the Hall of Fame is financially secure.

Record attendance

The Hall of Fame opened at its current location in 2001, survived a decline in visitors after the Sept. 11 attacks and proceeded to grow considerably of late.

Last year, the Hall of Fame set its attendance record with 564,777 visitors. Through Aug. 25, attendance is up 32.1% over last year, Young said.

The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum will more than double in size. Its expansion is expected to be completed early next year.(Photo: Sanford Myers, The Tennessean)

In 2010, the city approved a $34 million financing deal for the Hall of Fame expansion and its connector to Omni. The project is funded through money set aside from property tax revenues from downtown's redevelopment district.

"With the expansion of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum and its integration into the Omni Hotel and Music City Center, I expect it to play an even more significant role as one of America's most important cultural institutions and a key magnet for tourism in Nashville," said Nashville Mayor Karl Dean.

The building's operating budget, which is public record, shows that its 2012 revenue exceeded expenses by $2.2 million. Financial reports provided to The Tennessean for 2013 show the Hall of Fame bringing in $3 million more than its expenses so far.

"I think we have a real advantage to engage people and capture people's imagination," Young said. "We are in an unusual position in that we've got something that is really culturally important and central to the brand of this city — an accredited museum but also a measurable and sizable economic impact."

The bulk of the capital raised during the silent phase of the Hall of Fame's fundraising efforts — $48 million — came from donors who gave at least $1 million. Board Chairman Steve Turner and his wife, Judy, gave a $6.5 million gift. In addition, the Country Music Association donated $10 million for a new performance space.